Pas Brisée
by Chaos's Prototype
Summary: After all that has happened, at least this bond remains unbroken. For Raberba girl's 'Other Kinds of Love' challenge.


**A/N: **I'm taking on Raberba girl's Other Kinds of Love challenge again, this time for Marluxia's Somebody (Lumaria, for the purposes of this challenge) and the archdeacon from _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. In my headcanon, Lumaria is his grandson and was raised a Catholic. Due to his time in the Organization, he has difficulty with the latter from _Dream Drop Distance _onward, but for the most part attempts to sort through his own issues and work back to how he was before losing his heart.

(It's entirely possible that this challenge will make more sense if you've read _The First Step _and _May He Rest_. ^^; Hopefully, it'll make sense even if you haven't.)

This wasn't actually the theme I wanted to start with, but considering I've procrastinated _so flipping much _on writing it, I figured that I may as well go ahead with what I have. The title means "not broken (apart)" in French.

**As a general warning, while every entry may not necessarily include it, this challenge as a whole will include religious content.**

This starts around eight years before KH I, so the Organization is only around a year or so old at this point, with still just members I-VIII. Lumaria's around fifteen in the first scene and still learning English, the second scene is after KH III.

* * *

Theme 19: Stars

Lumaria fought the urge to sigh as his grandfather and a member of the guard spoke, all of the words in a language he was still only beginning to understand. As it was, he could only catch small pieces of the conversation ("Under surveillance" "More guards" "Surrounding the city).

It wasn't his job to listen to them, though. It was his job to keep quiet, not disturb them, and make sure he held the lantern high enough. Even if being able to listen made it less dull. Shifting his grip on the lantern's handle slightly, he looked up to the night sky, at the moon and stars hanging over Paris, if only for something else to pay attention to.

The stars had seemed strangely duller lately, not quite as bright as they usually were, but he didn't pay that much mind. They were still brighter than the candles that burned inside the cathedral, and even the lanterns. Then one flickered out and vanished. Lumaria started, nearly backing into his grandfather.

"Good night, sir," the guard said, a phrase Lumaria could easily recognize even while his thoughts were anywhere else.

_The scholars were right?_

His grandfather called something after the man, presumably wishing him well.

_Are the stars really dying?_

* * *

"It's much brighter than I remember," Lumaria murmured, gazing out one of the cathedral's windows.

"The stars?" the archdeacon asked. There was a pause as he seemed to consider this. "I suppose that's true."

Neither of them said anything for a while afterward, the archdeacon continuing to relight several candles that had gone out.

"Some other worlds," Lumaria said slowly, with a touch of something that he would never admit felt quite a bit like apprehension. "say that the stars are other worlds. When one goes out, it means a world has fallen to darkness." He tried not to glance back at his grandfather, expecting to be asked where he had heard such a ridiculous thing, or why he had even brought it up.

Instead, however, the man turned to him, sounding genuinely curious. "So when a star appears, a world has returned, then?"

"Presumably." Not that the other members had ever spoken of worlds _returning_, though.

He smiled. "That's a pleasant thought." Then, a bit quieter so that Lumaria thought he might have imagined it, "A bright sky would be even better, with that thought..."

Lumaria stared at him, so long that the man eventually asked, "Lost your voice, child?"

He blinked. "I suppose it would be better." He just hadn't expected him to say so. His father and grandfather might have believed him when he said he had been to other worlds, but that was only because soon they_ knew_ there were other worlds, thanks Xehanort and the second Organization's interference. He smiled a little, uncomfortably. "Though I doubt father would agree."

"I believe he means well," the archdeacon said, smiling sadly. "He seemed to be such a nice boy, when he was young. Quite a bit like you, if I recall."

Lumaria flinched, quickly turning back to the window. If there was one thing that people never tired of telling him, at least before, it was that. _'You're so much like him' 'You two look so much alike'_.

"It wasn't meant as an insult, you know," his grandfather told him, setting a hand on his shoulder, perhaps sensing his discomfort. "You were a very kind boy."

"'Were'," he repeated, as an agreement and not an accusation. He hadn't been called that, or deserved to be, in a very long time.

"You're trying," he reminded, still with attempted reassurance. "I think that kind."

Lumaria didn't say anything until his grandfather finally went back to his work. "Maybe," he muttered. Maybe it would be all right.


End file.
